Man Spends $700 On Cell Phone Minutes To Get $700 Unemployment Check

Filing for unemployment benefits can be an exhausting bureaucratic mess, but it shouldn’t cost you hundreds of dollars. In theory. According to TV station KOB, though, a New Mexico man spent so many hours on hold with the unemployment office that he ran up a $700 cell phone bill.

Sanchez says his cell phone is his only line, and if he didn’t make the calls to Workforce Solutions, he wouldn’t have gotten his money.

The bill shows Sanchez made 1,114 calls to the unemployment office in one month. Some days, it took hundreds of calls to get through—each call costing $0.45.

When he would get through, he says he would be put on hold. One time, he was on hold for almost 3 1/2 hours.

I think the only thing worse than listening to bad music on hold for the unemployment department has got to be paying 45 cents per minute for the privilege.